One could call it A Film Trilogy Vaguely Resembling In Basic Concept The Lord of The Rings and From It Taking Many Names and Scenarios Without Bothering To Actually Follow The Storyline Prescribed By The Source Material In The Slightest.

Not trying to be all anti-film about it. I'm not. I own the Extended Editions and enjoy them. But one would have to be doing some serious psychotropic drugs to claim that the film trilogy even resembled the book in feel, mood, style, or story. The only thing they seem to have in common is character names and basic plot.

If one wishes to claim that, then just about no book turned into a movie can be claimed to be anything except a film vaguely resembling....(yadda yadda yadda). Well, okay, maybe the Maltese Falcon followed the book all the way through, but I stopped reading it 2/3 through it because it was an EXACT duplication of the book.

Anyway, I disagree with your assessment.

As to the Silmarillion - I can't see any movies in that. Perhaps whatever Christopher Tolkien is preparing on a full novel of one of the stories (forget what it is). The Hobbit could be done without a doubt, though.

Redwine the Ribald: Stare long enough into the abyss...
Two-Tonic Tippler: ...and you spit into it.

I would have to say that my favorite Castle themed movie would have to be Braveheart. But there are a lot of other good ones like Gladiator, Robin Hood (2010), Robin Hood Prince of Thieves, and the Narnia movies.

I'm suprised by the amount of love for Prince of Thieves...that movie gets a lot of hate, but it certainly is a great Forestmen themed movie, among other things. It probably has a lot to do with my love of Castle, so I guess I shouldn't be surprised a lot of other people feel the same.

Another one that gets a lot of hate (but one that I love) is First Knight. It was unfortunate to come in against Braveheart and Rob Roy, but it's still a great movie. Who wouldn't want to build that Camelot out of Lego? And that night battle (nobody ever does night battles, and this is one of the best, if not the best) where the knights ride in, and all you see is their armor glistening in the moonlight, is fantastic.

Damien wrote:

Of course it can't be a film or trilogy...But many chapters from sillmarillion can be great triology spectacles for itselves...Story about Beren and Luthien,for example...I would personally like to see that one

I'd rather see something about Fingolfin. But I'm biased in that he's my favourite character (in the entire history of Middle-earth, not just in the Silm).

All things considered, though - it's not going to happen. None of the stories in the Silmarillion are long enough to fill out an hour and a half or more of film. The problem with that is that whoever was to make the film would have to 'fill in' the gaps. This could create wild inconsistencies, poor dialogue, dialogue that isn't true to the characters, and a number of other absurdities that I already got enough of from the LotR films.

However, if we could resurrect Tolkien for a little while to help create such a film -I'd be the first one at the theatre.

Fingolfin rules. I can't ever remember another time in any story that made me go "HOLY..." The Blind Guardian song is also one of my favorites.

It made me so mad when they added the elves to the the Battle of the Hornburg. Tolkien was very clear that nothing like that ever happened again, with Legolas being just about the lone exception. Yeah, the elves are cool...so make a Silmarillion movie. Way too much artistic license was taken there, and of course they all had to die (which makes it funny when they try to make it dramatic as if you don't see it coming), because they were never there in the first place.

Personally I've always felt that the Fall of Gondolin would make a great movie and have the best chance of any of the stories from the Lost Tales/Silmarillion. It has all the pieces necessary to make a great movie (love triangle, betrayal, epic battle), and while it may not have Fingolfin, it does have Ecthelion (who is a very worthy 2nd coolest elf ever) and Glorfindel. It would also be funny to mess with people and have Legolas make a cameo, just to see how fans react lol (for those who don't know, the joke is that the survivors of the battle were originally led to safety by an elf named Legolas, but the name was later changed to apply to the lotr Legolas, who is not the same elf...would've made him a million times cooler if he had been at Gondolin, though)

I quite enjoyed A Knight's Tale. I knew from the start that it would only vagely resemble what we call a castle movie but the music and Mark Addy's hilarious performance make this watchable for me....when it comes on late at night and I've just set the TV timer for how ever many minutes the movie has left.I really like to read Micheal Chricton books so Timeline was a must see for me too. Of course the book was 1,000,000 times better than the movie but the movie does have some nice medieval visuals in it.I love love love Excalibur though, I had it on VHS but we no longer have a machine to play it on so I was quite happy to finally find a copy of it on DVD a few months ago. I think it's so hilarious that they never take off their armour except to make love. The cheese factor is quite high in this movie but it's well worth watching for Merlin alone. He's my standard for all Merlins since then.

Trevor

Trust me, I think I'm funnier than you do.Why do I have to add the word "minifig" to my spell checker every time I use it?!

I was thirteen when Excalibur (1981) came out and I was really, really lucky that my parents didn't see it beforehand as they generally didn't take me to "R" rated movies. For that genre, it was like Star Wars in its impact as I had never seen a movie made that well. The armor and weaponry looked great. It also coinsided with getting the Yellow Castle a year earlier and starting D&D at the same time. I choose this movie as it had a lot of impact at a critical age.

That's not to say that I don't revere other greats like Conan the Barbarian, Braveheart, Gladiator, Kingdom of Heaven, Troy, LOTR, etc, etc. LOTR is, IMO, the one set of films that is very close in the amount of inspiration that Excalibur gave me.-Tower

Ye Olde Republic wrote:I love love love Excalibur though, I had it on VHS but we no longer have a machine to play it on so I was quite happy to finally find a copy of it on DVD a few months ago. I think it's so hilarious that they never take off their armour except to make love. The cheese factor is quite high in this movie but it's well worth watching for Merlin alone. He's my standard for all Merlins since then.

The technomage in Babylon 5 and the spin-off series Crusade (which was heavily modeled after the the story of Arthur) definitely took his inspiration from the Merlin in Excalibur. You'd definitely love him if you haven't seen him before. I've always favored the made-for-tv movie Merlin over Excalibur, though...the production is just so much better. Excalibur is certainly a cheese-fest...it's the 80's equivalent of Knights of the Round Table lol (if you like cheese, that'd definitely be one to watch...colorful is also a good word to describe that movie)

Funny how only 8 years after Knights of the Round Table came out, El Cid hit the screen and it's still a good looking movie even today. Excalibur didn't even look that good lol

Forgot to mention the made for tv movie Joan of Arc (the Sobieski one) is also one of my favs. Haven't been able to watch any other Joan movie since. Having a crush on her might have a little to do with it, though (she's almost the exact same age as me too) lol